The following is a press release, dated October 17, 2007, from People for the American Way.

Earmark for Anti-Science Creationist Group Must Be Removed

People For the American Way today called for the Senate to remove an earmark for an anti-science creationist group from the FY08 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education appropriations bill. The earmark, inserted by Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, would send taxpayer money to the Louisiana Family Foundation (LFF), a leading advocate of creationism in the state.

Speaking on the Senate floor on October 17, 2007, Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana) withdrew a controversial $100,000 earmark that he previously added to the appropriations bill for the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. The earmark was to the Louisiana Family Forum, a religious right group with a long history of promoting creationism and attacking evolution education in the state, including backing a "strengths and weaknesses" policy in Ouachita Parish.

In its new official statement on evolution, adopted on March 28, 2007, the California Academy of Sciences reaffirmed that "Evolution is a central concept in modern science, including biology, geology, and astronomy.

In the October 2007 issue of Discover magazine, Liza Lentini examines the creationism/evolution controversy, with a focus on teachers. She begins in Kansas, with a pair of teachers at private Christian schools who use textbooks that "present the universe as the direct creation of God and refute the man-made idea of evolution" and think that "The term 'evolution' is misused. ...